Sometimes he lost his temper and abused her, and then she wept silently.
Sometimes he thought she was nothing but a fraud, and that soul simply an invention of his own, and that he could not get into the sanctuary of her heart because there was no sanctuary there.
His love became a prison from which he longed to escape, but he had not the strength merely to open the door - that was all it needed - and walk out into the open air.
It was torture and at last he became numb and hopeless.
In the end the fire burnt itself out and, when he saw her eyes rest for an instant on the slender bridge, it was no longer rage that filled his heart but impatience.
For many years now they had lived together bound by the ties of habit and convenience, and it was with a smile that he looked back on his old passion.
She was an old woman, for the women on the islands age quickly, and if he had no love for her any more he had tolerance.
She left him alone.
He was contented with his piano and his books.
His thoughts led him to a desire for words.
“When I look back now and reflect on that brief passionate love of Red and Sally, I think that perhaps they should thank the ruthless fate that separated them when their love seemed still to be at its height.
They suffered, but they suffered in beauty.
They were spared the real tragedy of love.”
“I don’t know exactly as I get you,” said the skipper.
“The tragedy of love is not death or separation.
How long do you think it would have been before one or other of them ceased to care?
Oh, it is dreadfully bitter to look at a woman whom you have loved with all your heart and soul, so that you felt you could not bear to let her out of your sight, and realize that you would not mind if you never saw her again.
The tragedy of love is indifference.”
But while he was speaking a very extraordinary thing happened.
Though he had been addressing the skipper he had not been talking to him, he had been putting his thoughts into words for himself, and with his eyes fixed on the man in front of him he had not seen him.
But now an image presented itself to them, an image not of the man he saw, but of another man.
It was as though he were looking into one of those distorting mirrors that make you extraordinarily squat or outrageously elongate, but here exactly the opposite look place, and in the obese, ugly old man he caught the shadowy glimpse of a strip-ling.
He gave him now a quick, searching scrutiny.
Why had a haphazard stroll brought him just to this place?
A sudden tremor of his heart made him slightly breathless.
And absurd suspicion seized him.
What had occurred to him was impossible, and yet it might be a fact.
“What is your name?” he asked abruptly.
The skipper’s face puckered and he gave a cunning chuckle.
He looked then malicious and horribly vulgar.
“It’s such a damned long time since I heard it that I almost forget it myself. But for thirty years now in the islands they’ve always called me Red.”
His huge form shook as he gave a low, almost silent laugh.
It was obscene.
Neilson shuddered.
Red was hugely amused, and from his bloodshot eyes tears ran down his cheeks.
Neilson gave a gasp, for at that moment a woman came in.
She was a native, a woman of somewhat commanding presence, stout without being corpulent, dark, for the natives grow darker with age, with very grey hair.
She wore a black Mother Hubbard, and its thinness showed her heavy breasts.
The moment had come.
She made an observation to Neilson about some household matter and he answered.
He wondered if his voice sounded as unnatural to her as it did to himself.
She gave the man who was sitting in the chair by the window an indifferent glance, and went out of the room.
The moment had come and gone.
Neilson for a moment could not speak.
He was strangely shaken.
Then he said:
“I’d be very glad if you’d stay and have a bit of dinner with me. Pot luck.”
“I don’t think I will,” said Red.
“I must go after this fellow Gray.
I’ll give him his stuff and then I’ll get away.